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Page 410
me for that cause. They will merely cease from fighting one another for a while so that they can enjoy the pleasure of fighting someone new."
Salisbury's eyes had been flicking from husband to wife as if he were watching a game of pitch the ball. "By God's bright eyeballs," he said with a slight flavor of resentment, "I wonder why you trouble yourself about 'her' men, Ian. It seems to me Lady Alinor knows almost as much as you about the art of war. I am surprised she does not don armor and dispense with a husband entirely."
"For Mary's sake, William, shut your mouth," Ian groaned and laughed at the same time. "Did you not know that was why I married her? She was all prepared to do just what you said. I thought I had driven the matter out of her head, and here you are reminding her of it."
"He jests," Alinor explained. "I had no intention of donning armor. All I said was that"
"Alinor," Ian interrupted, shaking his head, "you are making matters worse. All she said, William, amounted to the fact that two experienced men of war and a young, but not childish, vassal needed her guidance in the matter of taking three small keeps."
"Well," Alinor responded tartly, "now you have met Sir Giles, Sir Henry, and Sir Johnwas I wrong?"
Ian uttered a bark of laughter that checked on a gasp of pain. "No, you were notat least, not in the matter of their need for guidance. I beg leave to think that mine will be better than yours, however." But the last sentence was spoken sharply, no longer in a light tone of teasing.
"Yes, of course," Alinor replied flatly.
Another flicker of pain crossed Ian's face, but Salis-bury did not think it was caused by any twinge in his body. Ian rubbed his hand across his mouth, then dropped it, and the lips were set hard.
"I am sorry to intrude our affairs upon you," he said

 
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